The present invention relates to so-called disposale absorbent pads, particularly such as incontinence pads or sanitary or menstruation pads, adapted to be used only once and then thrown away.
So far as it is known to the inventors, there are several articles of prior art used as incontinence guards which are partially similar in their constructions to a disposable absorbent pad of the present invention. For example, the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 3,452,753 discloses an article comprising a water-impermeable outer cover (not disposable) designed for elastic fitness around the wearer's waist- and leg-holes and a support attached to the inner side of the cover for a separate absorbent pad and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 1982-143502 discloses an article comprising an elastically stretchable waist band and straps interconnected to each other so as to form a supporter (not disposable) functioning to support a separate absorbent pad, wherein the supporter surrounds the wearer's legs not completely but partially.
These well known techniques are similar to the invention in that there are provided the straps connected to the elastically stretchable waist band to support the absorbent pad in direct or indirect manner and the basic body or supporter is configured so as to surround the wearer's legs not completely but partially.
There are many other incontinence guard articles of prior art, particularly of disposable type, for example, a disposable incontinence guard article comprising a liquid-permeable topsheet, a liquid-impermeable backsheet, a liquid-absorbent core sandwiched between these two sheets, and elastically stretchable members arranged along waist- and leg-holes and such an article further comprising a separate absorbent pad to be attached to the inner side of the article.
The straps employed by the prior art disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,452,753 appear to be provided for the purpose of assuring a stability with which a pad member of the article can be put on the wearer's body and the straps employed by the prior art disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 1982-143502 function only as components of the supporter.
According to the arrangement disclosed in the specification of U.S. Pat. No. 3,452,753, much time and labor would be required to make the article since the straps comprise a combination of the basic component of the article and the separate components. According to the arrangement disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 1982-143502, the supporter forms a part of the supporter but a wearer would be bothered with considerably troublesome handling in actual use of the article since the wearer must exactly apply the absorbent pad provided separately of the supporter to the latter. Such arrangement appears to be deficient in stability with which the absorbent pad could be suspended and therefore to be short of reliability with which excretion leakage could be avoided. Furthermore, both of these straps of the prior art have no elastic stretchability and therefore no function for pulling the basic body or supporter up toward the wearer's crotch. Accordingly, the absorbent pad is not maintained in sufficiently close contact with the wearer's crotch so as to prevent leak of excretion from occurring around this zone.